Peers set to back all-women shortlists

Legislation paving the way for the creation of all-women candidate shortlists will allow political parties to "put their own houses in order", the Leader of the Lords said today.

Lord Williams of Mostyn said the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill, which is set to receive a second reading in the Lords, would tackle the present system which is "unfair in its operations and its outcomes".

The legislation allows parties to positively discriminate in favour of women without falling foul of existing sex discrimination laws.

Describing the move as "permissive but not prescriptive", he said: "It is not for Government to interfere with the internal working of political parties. They ought to put their own houses in order if they have the will and the commitment to do so."

Lord Mostyn told peers that it was a "melancholy fact" that only 18% of MPs were women and that in the last 80 years women numbered only 240 out of the 4,500 MPs elected.

He said: "It is essential that women should be properly represented in our country's democratic bodies."

The legislation also applies to elections to local government, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales, Northern Ireland Assembly and the European Parliament.

For the Tories, Baroness Seccombe said the legislation was "necessary and pressing".

She said: "Encouraging more women to stand for election should not be about making up the numbers. It should be about ensuring that the political process takes advantage of the wealth of experience and the fresh perspectives that women have to offer."

Lady Seccombe said the Bill should be seen as a way of making Parliament more relevant to people's lives and reducing the perception that politics is a "man's game".

She told peers: "If we make a sincere attempt to make Parliament more responsive, accessible and attractive then in time this type of legislation will cease to be necessary. Increasing the number of women returned to Parliament is crucial for enhancing its credibility as a modern institution capable of effective, responsive government."

But she questioned whether the legislation would prove resistant to legal challenges and said there was "confusion" over whether it would fall foul of the European Court of Human Rights.

Liberal Democrat spokesman for women's issues, Baroness Thomas of Walliswood also welcomed the Bill. She said the problem was not to get women candidates selected for seats, but to ensure that they were selected for "winnable" seats.

Only five out of her party's 53 MPs were women, she said: "That is despite years and years and years of effort - trying to persuade women to come forward, trying to educate them and make them fit, as it were, the selection process, and more recently to trying to train selectors to select in a non-discriminatory fashion."